Baby Care

Posts Tagged ‘Baby Weaning’

Anyone who’s sat with a teething baby can tell you there’s no surefire way of helping a baby go to sleep. For exhausted parents during the day, getting a child to sleep through the night is vital. After months of nursing, you can begin weaning your child at night, but if you start before your baby is ready, you’ll be waking to the hungry screams of an infant. Experiment with sleeping habits and routines to find what works. You can’t make schedules for sleeping babies, but you can note patterns in the times your baby is most likely to be sleepy.

After the first six months, night weaning is an option. Check with your pediatrician.

Create the Right Environment
You can’t train a child to sleep through the night, but you can make sure conditions are right for sleeping. The room should be quiet, dimly lit, warm enough but not stuffy. You may unwind by rocking, singing, a warm bath or by lying together on your bed or couch. Modern toys and bed options promise to put the baby to sleep for you, but you also need a loving routine. You can incorporate the breathing or singing teddy bear into your child’s nighttime, but first create the security and calm that helps your infant sleep.

Change Your Own Plans before Trying to Change Your Child
Sometimes a baby won’t go to sleep because he just isn’t tired! Parents may try to get a baby to sleep because they’re wiped out, or have a meeting or need to take an important call, but these attempts will fail if the baby isn’t sleepy. To maximize your child’s chances of sleeping through the night, arrange your own schedule around the times your baby sleeps naturally. If you’re breast feeding, you may find you child dozes off after the second feeding of the day, but is wide awake for the third. Plan your free time after the second feeding. Change your own plans before trying to change your baby’s instincts: you can reason and plan, but your baby can’t.

When Do Babies Sleep through the Night?
Some babies start sleeping all night at around five or six months: others will wake frequently even once they’re toddlers. The child’s temperament has something to do with it: some kids are more restless and more easily awakened than others. Some children always struggle with sleeping, and unfortunately, the more stressed parents become by not getting any sleep of their own, the more turmoil is created in the child. Get as comfortable as possible, and wait it out.

Routines and Crying It Out
Creating habits around bedtime helps your child learn to wind down: a routine of a snack, a story, a cuddle and a song sets the expectation that now is the time for resting. Taking turns with your partner to put the baby to bed means you can spell each other from night to night, and your child won’t associate only one of you with going to sleep. The more people who can successfully put the baby to bed, the better!

Some experts have advocated letting the baby “cry it out”, and for some babies, this works. You put the child down and leave the room; the baby cries for a few minutes and then drifts off to sleep. But some children become more and more upset: when this happens, he can work himself into a rage. If your baby cries for more than ten minutes after being put down to sleep, you will have to try another tack.

Weaning is the process of introducing your baby to solids after being totally dependent on breast milk for her nutritional need for the first six months of life. You can gradually introduce your baby to minced or mashed foods and foods that need to be chewed. Of course, you may continue to breast or bottle-feed your baby alongside solid foods for as long as it’s comfortable for you and your baby.
As with breastfeeding on demand, Baby Weaning is a method of introducing solid foods that leaves it up to your baby to decide when and how much to eat.  While not necessarily a “hands off” approach, Baby Weaning does advocate allowing your baby to make all food choices for him or herself.
You are the best judge of when it’s time to wean, and you do not have to set a deadline unless you and your child are ready to do so. However, now the Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months (26 weeks). Breast milk and formula milk are easy for your baby to digest and provide all the calories and nutrients your baby needs for healthy growth and development. Also, it is thought that the chances of developing allergies are greatest during infancy, so feeding your baby a diet of breast milk or formula until this time helps reduce the risk of introducing allergens. As your baby’s digestive system matures, he or she will be better able to handle different foods without an allergic reaction. Breast or formula milk will continue to be a very important source of nutrition whilst your baby adjusts to a mixed diet and for the first year or so of life. If you feel your baby needs to start solids before this, do talk to your health visitor. The Department of Health used to recommend that babies were started on solids between the ages of four and six months.

How to know when your baby is ready for weaning?
Don’t rush into weaning as a result of pressure from parents or friends, but be guided by the following signals from your baby:
• being unsatisfied after a full milk feed
• demanding increasing and more frequent milk feeds
• weight gain slowing or leveling out without a period of illness to explain why
• after a period of sleeping through the night, your baby begins waking because he/she is hungry

You may also notice your baby showing interest in your food and attempting to put things in his/her mouth.
If you are unsure or concerned about when your baby is ready to begin weaning, talk to your health visitor.